TEMPO.CO, Charlottesville - Memorial vigils and other events showing solidarity with victims of Charlottesville were planned across the country on Sunday, August 13. The acts aim to "honor all those under attack by congregating against hate," a loose coalition of civil society groups said in postings on social media.
A 32-year-old woman was killed and 19 people were injured, five critically, on Saturday when a man plowed a car into a crowd of people protesting the white nationalist rally in the Southern college town of Charlottesville. Another 15 people were injured in bloody street brawls between white nationalists and counter-demonstrators who fought each other with fists, rocks and pepper spray.
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Two Virginia state police officers died in the crash of their helicopter after assisting in efforts to quell the unrest.
Virginia police have not yet provided a motive for the man accused of ramming his car into the crowd. But U.S. prosecutors and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have opened a civil rights investigation, FBI and Justice Department officials said.
The man, former U.S. Army enlistee James Alex Fields Jr., 20, is a former high school teacher.
Derek Weimer, a history teacher at Fields' high school, told Cincinnati television station WCPO-TV that he remembered Fields harboring "some very radical views on race" as a student and was "very infatuated with the Nazis, with Adolf Hitler."
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"I developed a good rapport with him and I used that rapport to constantly try to steer him away from those beliefs," Weimer recounted, adding that he recalled Fields being "gung-ho" about joining the Army when he graduated.
The Army confirmed that Fields reported for basic military training in August 2015 but was "released from active duty due to a failure to meet training standards in December of 2015." The Army statement did not explain in what way he failed to measure up.
Fields is being held on suspicion of second-degree murder, three counts of malicious wounding and a single count of leaving the scene of a fatal accident, authorities said.
REUTERS